5.  The applicant was born in 1949 and lives in Donji Miholjac.
6.  On 25 January 1997 the applicant was arrested and brought to a police station where, during a questioning session that lasted four hours, he was beaten by a police officer, M.B.
7.  On 28 January 1997 the physician who examined the applicant after the incident filed a criminal report with the relevant police authorities.
8.  On 24 July 1997 the Donji Miholjac State Attorney’s Office indicted M.B. before the Donji Miholjac Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Donjem Miholjcu) for the criminal offence of ill-treatment in the exercise of an official duty.
9.  By a judgment of 28 October 1997 the Municipal Court found M.B. guilty as charged and sentenced him to three months’ imprisonment but suspended the sentence for a period of one year. The court found, in particular, that the applicant had sustained light bodily injuries, mostly in the form of soft tissue contusions and bruising on the head, elbow and thighs.
10.  On 30 December 1997 the Osijek County Court (Županijski sud u Osijeku) dismissed an appeal by the accused and upheld the first-instance judgment, which thereby became final.
11.  On 30 October 1998 the applicant brought a civil action against the State in the Zagreb Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Zagrebu), seeking compensation for the ill-treatment sustained. He sought a total of 295,000 Croatian kunas (HRK) in compensation for non-pecuniary damage. In response, the State, represented by the State Attorney’s Office, replied that the applicant’s claim was excessive.
12.  On 10 November 1999 the court obtained an opinion from a medical expert. The expert established that the applicant had sustained the following injuries: several contusions on the head (affecting the vertex and the occipital and temporal lobes), bruising on ears, thighs, the left elbow and the left part of the abdomen. Those injuries had healed completely, with no permanent consequences, and had not resulted in the loss of amenities of life. The expert further found that the applicant had suffered constant severe pain for one or two days, occasional moderate pain for three or four days and occasional mild pain for three or four weeks. During the incident the applicant had also experienced intense, primal fear and, for the next one or two days, residual fear – the intensity of which had gradually subsided and completely disappeared over the three subsequent weeks.
13.  In written submissions of 15 June 2001 the applicant’s representative raised his initial claim for compensation to HRK 335,000, of which HRK 300,000 was sought for mental anguish caused by the ill-treatment, HRK 15,000 for physical pain and HRK 20,000 for fear. At a hearing held on 21 June 2001 the applicant’s representative reiterated that claim and, at the same time, withdrew his earlier objections to the expert’s opinion.
14.  On 17 September 2002 the Municipal Court gave judgment, whereby it awarded the applicant a total of HRK 14,500 in compensation for non-pecuniary damage sustained by arbitrary deprivation of liberty and ill-treatment, together with statutory default interest running from 17 September 2002 and HRK 3,553.31 in costs. In particular, the court awarded the applicant HRK 5,000 for breach of his reputation and honour, liberty and rights of personality, HRK 4,500 for physical pain and HRK 5,000 for fear. At the same time, it dismissed the remainder of the applicant’s compensation claim (HRK 320,500) and ordered him to pay the State HRK 26,197.87 in costs, which consisted of fees chargeable for the State’s representation by the State Attorney’s Office.
15.  In particular, as regards costs, that court established that the total amount of “costs necessary for the conduct of the proceedings”, within the meaning of section 155(1) of the Civil Procedure Act, incurred by the applicant on account of his legal representation by an advocate before that court was HRK 40,070, whereas the State had incurred HRK 27,375 on account of its legal representation by the State Attorney’s Office. As the applicant had only been awarded 4.3% of the total amount of damages sought, he was considered to have successfully claimed that percentage of the damages sought in the proceedings, whereas the State was considered to have successfully defended the remaining 95.7% of the claim. Costs were apportioned in accordance with those percentages, which meant that the applicant was entitled to have HRK 3.553.31 of his costs reimbursed by the State, whereas the State was entitled to have HRK 26,197.87 of its costs reimbursed by the applicant.
16.  On 9 May 2006 the Zagreb County Court (Županijski sud u Zagrebu) dismissed an appeal by the applicant and upheld the first-instance judgment.
17.  Following an appeal on points of law (revizija) by the applicant, on 24 April 2007 the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske) reversed the lower courts’ judgments in part and awarded him a total of HRK 24,000 in compensation for non-pecuniary damage, together with statutory default interest running from 17 September 2002 and HRK 8,300 in costs. In particular, the court awarded the applicant HRK 7,000 for physical pain and HRK 12,000 for fear, whereas the award of HRK 5,000 by the first-instance court for breach of his rights of personality remained unaltered. It dismissed the remainder of the applicant’s claim for damages and ordered him to pay the State HRK 19,000 in costs.
18.  On 24 December 2007 the State paid the applicant a total of HRK 32,207.28 pursuant to the Supreme Court judgment. That amount consisted of HRK 24,000 in damages, HRK 18,907.28 in accrued statutory default interest and HRK 8,300 costs, less the HRK 19,000 costs the applicant had been ordered to pay the State.
19.  Meanwhile, on 19 October 2007 the applicant, relying on Articles 22 and 23 of the Constitution, lodged a constitutional complaint against the Supreme Court’s judgment, alleging violations of his constitutional right to liberty and the constitutional prohibition of ill-treatment. In his constitutional complaint the applicant wrote, inter alia, as follows:
“On 30 October 1998 I instituted civil proceedings for damages against the Republic of Croatia as defendant, the epilogue of which was, after nine years of painstaking litigation, the Republic of Croatia as defendant having to pay me 24,000 [Croatian] kunas for all types of non-pecuniary damage and 8,300 [Croatian] kunas for the costs of the proceedings, whereas at the same time I had to pay the defendant 19,000 [Croatian] kunas for the costs of the proceedings!?
...
... I expected full satisfaction ... and [instead] I was reluctantly awarded only those 24,000 [Croatian] kunas, which, when my obligations concerning the defendant’s costs of proceedings are deducted [i.e. taken into account], comes down to a measly 13,300 [Croatian] kunas. [T]hat is no satisfaction at all but a mockery of the Constitution and the law at my expense as an innocent victim of violence by the authorities...
...
By the contested judgment I was after nine whole years of litigation ... awarded compensation in a shamefully small amount as if I had been injured in a road traffic accident by negligence, and not been brutally ill-treated.”
20.  On 17 September 2009 the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) dismissed the applicant’s constitutional complaint and served its decision on his representative on 4 November 2009. In so doing the Constitutional Court examined the applicant’s arguments not only under the two Articles of the Constitution he had relied on in his constitutional complaint, but also under Article 14 paragraph 2 of the Constitution, as it found that from the content of the constitutional complaint it was clear that the applicant also complained of a violation of his constitutional right to equality before the law.